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question about CPUs and GPUs

Just a bit of curiosity on my part the state of CPU and GPU (a
discrete graphics card) technology out there. I'm not ready to upgrade
my pc or build a new one yet but read ads and a few reviews. The last
I read was that CPUs are entering "ninth" generation from both AMD and
Intel and should reach the market later this year with a range of
options. I've also heard that the prices of GPU have started dropping
for one reason or another (mainly bitmining).

What would be an example of a cutting edge CPU and a cutting edge GPU
on the market now?
Same question but for what would be called a medium quality CPU and GPU?

I'm pretty sure that a cutting edge CPU and GPU are out of my price
range, but I do wonder from time to time what performance in general
one might expect combining one quality grade of CPU with that of a GPU.
I'm talking about:
(1) cutting edge CPU paired with medium quality GPU or
(2) medium quality CPU paired with cutting edge GPU or
(3) medium quality CPU paired with medium quality GPU.

My current build is about 4 or 5 years old now and handles what I do
quite easily - playing older RPG games (e.g., Baldur's Gate,
Morrowind), email, web surfing and watching YouTube videos. However,
I'm getting interested in playing some of the new(er) games out there -
sorry, no titles to offer as an example at the moment - just that the
demos and benchmark videos on YouTube indicate that current and
slightly older games would require more oomph than my current system
could provide. My pc is not overclocked nor do I believe I would be
interested in doing that with a new CPU.

Yes wrote:
Just a bit of curiosity on my part the state of CPU and GPU (a
discrete graphics card) technology out there. I'm not ready to upgrade
my pc or build a new one yet but read ads and a few reviews. The last
I read was that CPUs are entering "ninth" generation from both AMD and
Intel and should reach the market later this year with a range of
options. I've also heard that the prices of GPU have started dropping
for one reason or another (mainly bitmining).

What would be an example of a cutting edge CPU and a cutting edge GPU
on the market now?
Same question but for what would be called a medium quality CPU and GPU?

I'm pretty sure that a cutting edge CPU and GPU are out of my price
range, but I do wonder from time to time what performance in general
one might expect combining one quality grade of CPU with that of a GPU.
I'm talking about:
(1) cutting edge CPU paired with medium quality GPU or
(2) medium quality CPU paired with cutting edge GPU or
(3) medium quality CPU paired with medium quality GPU.

My current build is about 4 or 5 years old now and handles what I do
quite easily - playing older RPG games (e.g., Baldur's Gate,
Morrowind), email, web surfing and watching YouTube videos. However,
I'm getting interested in playing some of the new(er) games out there -
sorry, no titles to offer as an example at the moment - just that the
demos and benchmark videos on YouTube indicate that current and
slightly older games would require more oomph than my current system
could provide. My pc is not overclocked nor do I believe I would be
interested in doing that with a new CPU.

TIA for comments.

John

The core count on the CPUs is going up.

Nobody knows how to use all the cores, but they're there.

The number of shaders on video cards is going up. Only
Furmark (a benchmark) seems to use them all. You can play
an older game on a 150W video card, and the video card only
draws 40 watts.

Some games use frame-limiters, which means you'll never notice
that a new video card is present.

There are monitors that go up to 144Hz, and there are
two standards for "variable frame times". There is GSync (NVidia)
and FreeSync (AMD). I don't think there are any monitors that
support both.

You could probably combine any of the above and play games.
With some combinations providing "hood ornaments" in terms
of hardware without a usage. For example, the ray tracing
isn't likely to be fast enough to matter, but, it's there.
Some of the cards may have more than one usage (hardware
assisted video encoder, tensor engine).

This year, the price of RAM is supposed to decrease slightly.
Although, how RAM manufacturers in China will be entering the
market is an unknown.

The price of NAND has already come down a bit, as a result
of multiple suppliers of 64L or 96L flash chips.

Video cards no longer have VGA connectors. If you still own
VGA monitors (and who doesn't), you will be expected to fork
out more money for adapters. This makes cheap video cards
particularly *unattractive*. If you're paying $1000 for
a video card, buying three adapters for $20 a piece sounds
oh so normal. Less so if you're buying a 1030 (and no, you
should not be buying a 1030 anyway - no video encoder).

Paul wrote:
Yes wrote:
Just a bit of curiosity on my part the state of CPU and GPU (a
discrete graphics card) technology out there. I'm not ready to upgrade
my pc or build a new one yet but read ads and a few reviews. The last
I read was that CPUs are entering "ninth" generation from both AMD and
Intel and should reach the market later this year with a range of
options. I've also heard that the prices of GPU have started dropping
for one reason or another (mainly bitmining).

What would be an example of a cutting edge CPU and a cutting edge GPU
on the market now?
Same question but for what would be called a medium quality CPU and GPU?

I'm pretty sure that a cutting edge CPU and GPU are out of my price
range, but I do wonder from time to time what performance in general
one might expect combining one quality grade of CPU with that of a GPU.
I'm talking about:
(1) cutting edge CPU paired with medium quality GPU or (2) medium
quality CPU paired with cutting edge GPU or (3) medium quality CPU
paired with medium quality GPU.
My current build is about 4 or 5 years old now and handles what I do
quite easily - playing older RPG games (e.g., Baldur's Gate,
Morrowind), email, web surfing and watching YouTube videos. However,
I'm getting interested in playing some of the new(er) games out there -
sorry, no titles to offer as an example at the moment - just that the
demos and benchmark videos on YouTube indicate that current and
slightly older games would require more oomph than my current system
could provide. My pc is not overclocked nor do I believe I would be
interested in doing that with a new CPU.

TIA for comments.

John

The core count on the CPUs is going up.

Nobody knows how to use all the cores, but they're there.

The number of shaders on video cards is going up. Only
Furmark (a benchmark) seems to use them all. You can play
an older game on a 150W video card, and the video card only
draws 40 watts.

Some games use frame-limiters, which means you'll never notice
that a new video card is present.

There are monitors that go up to 144Hz, and there are
two standards for "variable frame times". There is GSync (NVidia)
and FreeSync (AMD). I don't think there are any monitors that
support both.

You could probably combine any of the above and play games.
With some combinations providing "hood ornaments" in terms
of hardware without a usage. For example, the ray tracing
isn't likely to be fast enough to matter, but, it's there.
Some of the cards may have more than one usage (hardware
assisted video encoder, tensor engine).

This year, the price of RAM is supposed to decrease slightly.
Although, how RAM manufacturers in China will be entering the
market is an unknown.

The price of NAND has already come down a bit, as a result
of multiple suppliers of 64L or 96L flash chips.

Video cards no longer have VGA connectors. If you still own
VGA monitors (and who doesn't), you will be expected to fork
out more money for adapters. This makes cheap video cards
particularly *unattractive*. If you're paying $1000 for
a video card, buying three adapters for $20 a piece sounds
oh so normal. Less so if you're buying a 1030 (and no, you
should not be buying a 1030 anyway - no video encoder).

The driver is capable of different optimizations depending on load.
During "Smoke-Particles", it operates in VREL mode, meaning
the core voltage of the GPU is high, the core frequency is high,
but not all the shaders are being used fully.

Whereas with Furmark, the card goes into power limiting.
The voltage is reduced so volts*amps stays below the card
limit. When the voltage drops, the core frequency has to drop,
and the core frequency can't be as high as in the previous example.

Presumably it's also possible to be temperature limited,
but I haven't left either of those tests running long
enough to find out. The card I bought is a "short" card
with two fans instead of three fans. If I had bought a
card with three fans, the card would not fit in the
computer case.